In this part of the podcast, we discuss with Dmitry the issues of Supply Chains necessary to maintain our current Industrial Civilization, the possible effects of Supply Chain breakdowns, resiliency versus efficiency and how the various nations under the Soviet Union umbrella coped with the collapse of that mega-state. Other topics include the possibilities for Near Term Human Extinction and principles underlying Sustainable Communities.

Coming soon to Diner Podcasts, a new Frostbite Falls Daily Rant on the 8th Crusade looking at the escalating assymetric warfare being pursued by the ISIS Caliphate in MENA.

RE
Not everyone who follows Guy believes in NTE. I don’t and don’t care. Academic. My goal is to prevent suffering. Like charity, starting at home and going from there. Given that nothing else has worked, for decades, I don’t see how Guy’s shock therapy matters. I’m tired of the argument that you can’t scare people and you have to give people solutions. We knew the solution a long time ago -Stop, or dial it back 80% or whatever. That was a trick, what they meant was alternatives. Alternatives to giving up most of the materialism. Green washing the cake for guilt free eating.

“It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and
our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being;
but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.”

— Lucius Anneaus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, n. 91

23. Apocaloptimist – A person (or organization) that makes a powerful case that Armageddon is nigh, but posits unsubstantiated hope that human ingenuity will solve the problems in time. NOTE: despite being categorized as Doomers, virtually every single person in this Encyclopedia is an overt or covert apocaloptimist (with one or two exceptions) who are either selling snake oil, or they believe their own BS – but primarily, for the simple reason that true doomers are rarely read and NEVER published. So the distinctions are broad and suspect.

When man interferes with the Tao
then the sky becomes filthy,
the earth becomes depleted,
the equilibrium crumbles &
creatures become extinct …

~ Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 500 BCE.

I do NOT believe that men CAN “interfere with the Tao.”

Rather, human energy flows along its path of least action,
which happens to be maximum stupidity & least morality.

More popular and more widely cited intellectuals
seem to be similar to good politicians, in that the
“success” of their messages are very short-term!

That Part II raised the issue of Guy McPherson’s opinions, and both of the comments above already focused on that.

I do NOT think that Guy McPherson wanted to come to the conclusions that he came to! Rather, his honourable sense of intellectual integrity (based upon his presumptions regarding what was genuinely “scientific”) FORCED him to come to his conclusions, as a matter of intellectual integrity. Meanwhile, personally, I am clinging to what I believe is a rational hope that McPherson’s time scale has been extended by allowing for the influence of the ideas of Ben Davidson, of Suspicious0beserves:

Basically, are changes in the combined Sun/Earth magnetic systems going to give us a temporary break from the otherwise apparently runaway feedbacks of greenhouse gas mechanisms? (At the present time, I feel I am clutching at the straws of some reasonable hope for the former, to postpone the latter.)

I cling to what I regard as irrational hope, because I would rather have some hope, instead of none at all. At the same time, I try to provide myself with some philosophical consolidations. I regard Energy as Spirit. Therefore, I see no fundamental dichotomy between the material world versus the spiritual world, because the special theory of relativity proves that matter is an extremely concentrated form of energy. Therefore, I regard the material world as the product of intensified spirituality. On the other hand, I associate the concept of entropy with evil. However, I do that only after going through a radical critique of the classical concept of entropy, again due to the special theory of relativity proving that the time/space continuum is nothing like common sense and classical physics believed, that time and space were independent absolutes.

Pretty well everything I think is the result of attempting to do a creative synthesis of post-modernizing science with ancient mysticism. However, in the context, I still see no practical ways for human civilizations, that have become totally dominated by systems of enforced frauds, to be able to avoid the longer term consequences of having done that. Those consequences are going to extremely horrible for human beings, especially the younger human beings, or those not yet born, because everything that systems of enforced frauds do is maximize the short-term benefits in ways which simultaneously maximize the longer term costs. The basic debt slavery system is, by definition, destroying the future, because the future was forced to fraudulently pay for things that were done in the past, and at the present time. That fraud will eventually catch up with us, as the tipping points are reached where the longer term costs overwhelm the shorter term benefits. However, despite there necessarily being psychotic breakdowns of the established systems of legalized lies backed by legalized violence, which will manifest as severe social storms, none of that means that energy stops being conserved. Therefore, the spiritual world continues, even though lots of human beings may die miserably, in horrible ways, due to the runaway debt slavery, driving debt insanity, that caused death insanities.

After all, the full set of possible cosmic events includes relatively rare natural disasters, as well as man-made disasters. None of those destroy energy, so, in my view, none of those challenge the ways that the spiritual world flows on and on … However, for many finite human beings, world war using weapons of mass destruction would be too terrible to be able to imagine, and yet, that appears to be the path that we are on now, since the people who dominate our civilization are able to continue to pull off successful false flag attacks, and thus, promote the vicious spiral of more terrorism, whereby it becomes so insane that Americans are paying (in the sense of going deeper into debt) to arm “terrorists” … and then, Americans are paying to blow up those weapons! Even IF we avoid an insane World War, the weapons of mass destruction continue exist as threats to back up the runaway financial frauds, which make every economic decision be done within fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems! For the sake of psychic equilibria, I find it necessary to endeavour to develop a flexible philosophy, which is somewhat similar to attempting to intellectually adapt to the ENTIRE MENU OF DOOM, while nevertheless maintaining some transcendental poetry which enables infinite hope beyond any finite hope.

Anyway, my sort of self-made philosophy/religion is the result of the ways that post-modernizing sciences have reconverged towards ancient mysticism. That is the way that I asymptotically approach my conceptions regarding “the One who made me … and you.” That is what provides me with some transcendental poetry, or philosophical consolations, although that does not appear to provide any practical ways to prevent the established social systems from becoming more psychotically insane, as demonstrated by the degree to which U.S. foreign policy is schizophrenic, because the established systems of debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, are running amok!

In that Podcast interview Orlov correctly summarizes that NATO is dominated by

“a foreign policy juggernaut run by very suicidally stupid people!”

“THERE IS NO WINNING STRATEGY!”

The development of weapons of mass destruction has made Neolithic Civilizations’ social pyramid systems based on being able to back up lies with violence become criminally insane. However, the astronomically amplified degree to which that has become the case has left pretty well everyone behind in the dust of advancing science and technology. Our political science is almost totally dominated by the biggest bullies’ bullshit social stories, including within the controlled opposition groups, as well as within the dominate established systems, because the basic thrust of being able to back up lies with violence has become runaway criminal insanities, because the ability to enforce frauds never makes those frauds become true, but rather, only drives society as a whole to become more insane.

I point out that natural selection always existed, and therefore, artificial selection must necessary exist in some form or another. The death controlling murder systems must be at the center of any such necessary artificial selection systems. However, the history of the human murder systems developed warfare to be based on backing up deceits with destruction, upon which basis was built a political economy founded on enforced frauds. The people at the top of the social pyramid systems ARE insane, because they were only good at being dishonest and backing that up with violence, which strategy has become collective criminal insanity, because that “IS NO WINNING STRATEGY!”

PART I of this interview seemed far superior to me, because it was more within the expertise of Orlov. However, Orlov admitted that he had not made any serious study of those issues which would result in everything that he was talking about eventually becoming irrelevant. In my view, attempting to maintain an overall attitude of intellectual integrity requires an honourable effort to consider the ways that there may be conservation of energy and momentum and preservation of information. In my view, to the best of current human knowledge, there is no “ultimate doom” because energy WILL be conserved, and there is nothing that human beings could do to prevent that. Rather, the relative issues are the degree to which we continue to be able to make more non-linear functions of the conservation of energy, so that there is more life and consciousness. In the cybernetic sense, purpose comes from feedback: some of the outputs of some system return as inputs. From a sublime point of view, the universe (or universes) as a Whole represents the Supreme Purpose, because all outputs return as inputs. However, for relatively defined as finite human beings, the issues are what are the degrees to which we are able to have more life and consciousness, through more non-linear ways that energy is conserved, or to what relative degree are we operating in ways which are based on evil deliberate ignorance. It is clear that our current civilization is based on systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which tend to be based on the maximum possible evil deliberate ignorance, which is objectively why we tend to regard the finite future of the human species as appearing so dismal. Economics is a dismal science, while ecology is doubly dismal, and therefore, combining economics with ecology becomes dismal cubed.

The paradoxical predicament that we are inside of now was explained well in PART I of this interview. However, I think Part II failed to maintain the same standards of understanding. From a deeper scientific point of view, human beings are manifestations of general energy systems, operating as entropic pumps, which operate in ways which can be best described by the principles and methods of organized crime. After defining human beings as separate from their environment, then they necessarily operate as gangs of robbers. Human realities are always systems of organized lies, operating robberies. However, those who were the best at doing that thereby dominated civilizations, so that the bullshit world view that the biggest bullies promoted dominated civilization, including the controlled opposition groups. Furthermore, the biggest bullies’ bullshit world view also dominated the philosophy of science. Hence, basically, we live in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything tends to be perceived as proportionately backwards and distorted, on level after level of almost infinite tunnels of deceits and frauds. By and large, the controlled opposition groups continue to operate inside of the same frame of reference, and therefore, the opposition groups are just as full of bullshit about everything as the established systems also are!

There are and must be death controls, which are central to human systems of artificial selection, which exist and must exist because the forces of natural selection must and do exist. However, since human history developed the most expedient sets of solutions to the chronic political problems (based on the previously successful systems of backing up deceits with destruction, and enforcing frauds), which have recently become globalized systems of electronic fiat money, backed by the threat of the force of weapons of mass destruction, that are overall “run by very suicidally stupid people! … THERE IS NO WINNING STRATEGY!”

Theoretically, we should be going through intellectual scientific revolutions, that apply to politics. However, all of the established systems, and their controlled opposition groups, are run by people who developed to become the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites. Therefore, it is practically impossible to have any rational public debates regarding how to operate better death controls, while the world heads towards death insanities by default. Given the degree to which the ways that people think has become utterly out of touch with the ways that post-modernizing sciences now think, as technologies based on those post-modernizing science advance, the vast majority of the ways that vast majority of people continue to think are becoming more and more psychotically insane, in the sense of out of touch with the real world. The ideas that made electronics and atomic energy possible are NOT found in any significant political ideologies!

Theoretically, we need to up-date all the old-fashioned religions and ideologies, to become more consistent with post-modernizing sciences, (which tend to reconverge with ancient mysticism.) However, obviously, almost everyone adamantly refuses to do anything remotely like that. Therefore, we have the runaway systems of globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of atomic bombs, while almost nobody is able and willing to change how they think about politics, in ways which come remotely close to becoming more consistent with post-modernizing sciences. Indeed, that paradox is so extremely intense that is practically pointless for me to bother to attempt to communicate the nature of that problem. The whole world is dominated by a “juggernaut run by very suicidally stupid people!” THEY HAVE “NO WINNING STRATEGY” FOR THE LONGER TERM.

When it comes to bigger issues such as climate change, I believe that nobody understand that fully. It is plausible that the Guy McPherson view will eventually be proven correct, although I tend to current think his time scale should be expanded, rather than contracted. In any case, the basic issues of developing better human, industrial and natural ecologies end up focus upon their core issue, which is whether human beings could develop better death control systems. At the present time, the established systems ARE based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds, and it makes SENSE how and why that happened. In my view, the crucial questions are whether or not human beings could go through some series of technological and political miracles, in which the political miracles would eventually be more important than any series of technological miracles, which would only postpone the chronic political problems inherent in the nature of life continuing to surround us.

Since I regard us as now living in a Bizarro Mirror World, I tend to propose that the better resolutions of our problems must become better murder systems, understood by a better militarism, as the ideology of that murder system. The degree to which we fail to be able to do that is the degree to which we will end up defaulting to worse murder systems, in which death insanities, with no certain end, or final level, becomes more and more plausible. The basic paradox is that the success of the human experiment, of building brains which could better model their world, including a model of themselves within their model of the world, MUST come to terms with natural selection by developing some artificial selection systems … BUT, the history of warfare selected for those to actually end up being done through the maximum possible deceits, and that become the foundation for an economic system based on the maximum possible frauds. Meanwhile, the back-up systems continue to be natural selection, but that tends to be deliberately misunderstood as much as possible by most people, and especially deliberately denied by those who currently most operate the established death and debt control systems! The extreme forms of the human paradoxes now are that intelligence was internalized natural selection, while that ended up being most successfully done through militarism and monetary systems based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds. Hence, we are operating our human artificial selection systems in the most insane ways possible!

THE SHORT-TERM SUCCESSES OF CONTROLLING CIVILIZATIONS WITH SYSTEMS OF ENFORCING FRAUDS
HAVE BEEN SO “SUCCESSFUL,” FOR SO LONG, NOTHING ELSE SEEMS PRACTICALLY POSSIBLE, POLITICAL STRATEGY, WHICH IS WHY DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS APPEAR MORE AND MORE PROBABLE, SINCE, SO FAR, NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE TO EFFECTIVELY AVOID US COMMITTING COLLECTIVE SUICIDE, THROUGH COLLECTIVE STUPIDITY AND COLLECTIVE DELIBERATE IGNORANCE!

" As a daily reader of all of the doomsday blogs, e.g. the Diner, Nature Bats Last, Zerohedge, Scribbler, etc… I must say that I most look forward to your “off the microphone” rants. Your analysis, insights, and conclusions are always logical, well supported, and clearly articulated – a trifecta not frequently achieved."- Joe D

Why are you publishing this book now?I still feel that the way that we talk about climate change is too compartmentalised, too siloed from the other crises we face. A really strong theme running through the book is the links between it and the crisis ...